He went to the National Gallery and began to understand the Italians. He would become a Christian and paint Madonnas, mothers suckling their children, with kindly saints like Edward Tufnell looking on. Yet the new spirituality jarred with his life at home and was not strong enough to combat it. That life contained a quality as essential to him as air. It stank in his nostrils, but it was the food of his spirit and he could not, though his new enthusiasm bade him do it, sentimentalize his relation with his mother. Her relation with his father forbade it, and his father cast a shadow over the greater life illuminated by the figure of Christ. Yet because of the pictures he could not abandon the struggle, and he tried to find support by proselytizing Harry. That roisterer had begun to find his life very unsatisfying, and he gulped down the new idea simply because it was new. He got drunk on it, refused to go to the synagogue, and performed a number of acts that he thought Christian, as wasting his money on useless and hideous presents for his mother and sisters. Also he took a delight in talking of the Messiah, and ascribed all the misfortunes of the family to its adherence to an exploded faith. Jacob was furious. This soft Christian nonsense was revolting to him. "Say another word," he shouted, "say another word and I turn you out of the house. Jeshua! I will tell you. In America it has been proved, absolutely proved in a court of law, that this Jeshua was nothing better than a pimp. It was proved by a very learned Rabbi before a Christian judge, and when the judge saw that it was proved he broke down and wept like a woman." "I've only your word for it," said Harry, already rather dashed. "I tell you I've seen it in print. If you like I will send for the book to America." Harry held his peace. That settled it for him, and even Mendel was shaken by the storm his Christian inclinations had let loose. "The Christians are liars," said Jacob. "Every one of them is a liar, and they eat filth." There was a passion of belief in his father which Mendel could not but honour, and that other faith, so far as he knew, was held but mildly. It was charming in its results, but its spirit was unsatisfying to him who had been bred on stronger fare. All the same, his attitude towards his father's authority was changed. His simple acceptance was shaken, and he was in revolt against the repression of his dearest desires enjoined by it. His tongue was loosed and he began to talk enthusiastically to Edward Tufnell about his ambitions. "I beat them all at the school," he used to say, "and I would never let anybody beat me. I can see more clearly than anybody. I can see colour where they can see none, and shadows where they can see none. And when I have painted them, then they can see them."